Chapter 1 - Introduction—Public transport response to COVID-19 from a disaster management perspectives

Abstract

COVID-19 is a contagious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. After the first detection in December 2019, it spread worldwide quickly, leading to a pandemic, recording more than 644 million cases and 6.6 million deaths by the end of 2022. In the early phase of the pandemic, many countries put restrictions on human mobility as the center of the containment strategies, leading to large—or “disastrous”—impacts on the public transport sector. Looking from a disaster management perspective—often described as a disaster management cycle, which consists of mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery—this pandemic is unique in that it does not harm the functionality of the public transport system, but the containment measures reduced the travel demand radically, and it also demanded the public transport sector to respond to hygiene measures. It also seems to have changed the travel demand patterns largely through increased use of working from home.